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I'd like to make a scratch drum track for one of the songs for the band I'm in. I've used FL studio for other songs and it's worked great. However, this song has some strange fills in it that are 12, 19, and 20 sixteenth notes long. The rest of the song is just regular 4/4.

Is it possible in FL studio to change one of the measures such that it is a few sixteenth notes shorter/longer?

If not, then is there any better way to solve this problem within FL studio short of having 3 versions of each drum pattern I'm using - one normally-aligned version, one version which is offset by 3 sixteenth notes (after the 19-note fill), another offset by 15 sixteenth notes (after the 19-note plus the 12-note fill), etc.?

JoshP
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Claudiu
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  • Are the "strange fills" recorded as audio? –  Jul 17 '13 at 11:42
  • @Andyaka: no, they're just regular patterns, but let's say "yes" (I can turn them into audio) if it'll make what I asked possible. –  Jul 17 '13 at 14:34
  • Do you have something like a tempo track that can be altered along the way? I'm a cubase user and don't know FL so I'm thinking how I'd go about doing it. In cubase's tempo track you can set the tempo to be a bit faster if they were turned to audio - they won't play faster but the bar (for midi e.g. stuff) would end quicker. Cubase's tempo track can have bars defined as being a certain fraction of a previous bar but I don't know if you get this in FL. –  Jul 17 '13 at 15:13
  • @Andyaka: oh interesting. i believe that FL studio does have tempo automation (even for non-audio patterns). So I could basically 'hack' around the weird fill by making its 19 notes fit into 16 notes, and having that bar play slower... i'll give this a shot, thanks! –  Jul 17 '13 at 15:53

2 Answers2

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Tempo track - in cubase (and I know it's an FL question), there is a tempo track. Not only can you alter tempo but you can make a bar with different timings and from what the OP is saying it looks like it is the same in FL. Say you are 4:4 for your song and you need a bit that is 3:4, you can paste timing events in the tempo (cubase) where you can set the tempo for the rest of the track. Say you wanted one bar of 3:4, position your scrolling cursor at the correct place then past a tempo event at the start of the bar and at the end of the bar.

The tempo event at the end of the bar returns the track to 4:4 and you can set the tempo at the start of the bar to 3:4. If you want more acute fractions of a bar like 7/8 you can set just that bar to 7:8 etc. etc..

I'm hoping the OP will respond with pictures showing how it's done in FL.

Andy aka
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  • +1 for the idea but I don't think this'll work in FL. There is a way to automate tempo, but not time signature. Even if there were, there's no way to get a time signature that has partial beats (e.g. (16+3)/16). I figured out I could make 16 sixteenths at 99BPM last as long as 19 sixteenths at 83.8 BPMs, but that wouldn't be perfectly accurate, and also I'd have to place notes on a 16th note grid divided into 19 notes, which 'twould be awkward... –  Jul 18 '13 at 15:18
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    I ended up just making multiple versions of each beat, e.g. I'd have the chorus, then a "chorus offset by 3 sixteenth notes", and managed to stitch 'em all together that way. –  Jul 18 '13 at 15:19
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Not sure when they introduced it, but in FL Studio 20+ you can add time signatures on the playlist.

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Andrew Cheong
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